Event brings educators together to teach each other

Friday

Jul 28, 2017 at 5:32 PMJul 28, 2017 at 5:32 PM

Nicholas Filipas Record Staff Writer @nicholasfilipas

STOCKTON — Hundreds of San Joaquin County teachers and administrators participated in a daylong conference Friday, an opportunity for educators from across California to share strategies and lessons learned in the classroom.

The third annual Better Together: California Teachers Summit was held at University of the Pacific and 35 other college campuses across the state.

The summit was designed to equip educators with the tools and resources to execute positive teaching practices.

Addresses featured topics such as bullying, teaching students to be critical thinkers and celebrating diversity, officials said.

Friday started with a livestream address by Jill Biden, an educator and the wife of former Vice President Joe Biden.

In Pacific's Vereschagin Alumni House, local teachers networked and heard presentations from Adrianne Go-Miller, fifth-grade teacher at Elkhorn Elementary School and 2016 county Teacher of the Year; and Peter Gallegos, a seventh- and eighth-grade teacher at Harrison Elementary and the 2017 Teacher of the Year.

Gallegos' discussion, “STEM, Specifically Robotics, is not Gender Specific," focused on the importance of bringing home the notion that STEM (Science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education is not strictly for boys.

According to Gallegos, data shows STEM will be booming in the coming years. In 2020, he said, nearly three-quarters of all jobs will be in STEM-related fields. It's a market in which an estimated 123 million people will be needed to fill jobs, he said, but only 50 million Americans will be qualified.

He added that while women make up half of the workforce, only 13 percent of women are in engineering fields.

Gallegos' classroom at Harrison Elementary is a “science and engineering lab” where his students collaborate on projects, such as building robots. Gallegos also uses his classroom as a makeshift arena for his students to test their creations in robotics competitions.

Some female students are hesitant at first, Gallegos said, but STEM education pushes all students to take leadership roles. An example cited was a female student who went above and beyond by learning to code, then teaching her classmates and other students in Stockton Unified to code.

“You saw the excitement in her face,” Gallegos said. “What we’re hoping to do is to have innovative thinking to prepare (students) for the future …This is a crucial time in an age where we need to have students thinking outside the box.”

Additional afternoon sessions featured Brett Taylor, a 2014 graduate of the Benerd School of Education at Pacific, and Stockton's poet laureate, Tama Brisbane.

Benerd Dean Vanessa Sheared thanked the teachers who came to the summit and said it's important for universities and school districts to work together to help teachers solve the issues and concerns students bring every day.

"We are better together," she said. "Now, more than ever, we need to continue to celebrate, to honor you and to say you matter and you make a difference in our children’s lives. We appreciate you for all that you do on behalf of the children in California."

Contact reporter Nicholas Filipas at (209) 546-8257 or nfilipas@recordnet.com. Follow him on recordnet.com/filipasblog or on Twitter @nicholasfilipas.

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